Christian Dart is a multi-award winning musical, sketch and improvisational comedian. Most recently, Christian’s solo show ‘GUMSHOE!’ was nominated for Best Show at the Leicester Comedy Festival 2025, his comedy trio The Bad Clowns were awarded the Presidents Award for Performing Arts, and ‘GUMSHOE!’ Made it to the grand final of Leicester Square Theatre’s Sketch-Off! 2025. Christian was a semi-finalist in the Musical Comedy Awards 2025 and after a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival ‘25 he was invited to bring ‘GUMSHOE!’ To London’s prestigious Soho Theatre. August sees the show returning to the Fringe for what should be a triumphant victory lap. We spoke to Christian about ‘GUMSHOE!’, balancing the show’s scripted narrative with its improvisational elements, and making sure to enjoy the Fringe above all other considerations. 

Can you tell us about ‘GUMSHOE!’?

Yes, ‘GUMSHOE!’ is a comedy noir. It’s a parody of all of the pastiches and cliches that you would find in 1940s noir crime films, but also a lot of the cliches and pastiches you would find in my favorite film genre of murder mysteries in general.

For those who might not be familiar with you, how would you describe your comedy and your approach to performance?

Organised chaos is what I like to tell people. But the honest truth is that it’s not as organised as I like to think it is. It’s clowning with lots of improv, but also heavily scripted, but scripted in a way that if things go off the rails, the show doesn’t stop. The show includes the chaos.

And what is it that appeals to you specifically about character comedy? Is it having that framework to go off script a little bit? Is it audience interaction in another’s voice? Is it scripting the narrative as opposed to maybe doing straight stand up?

Yeah, I think it’s a mixture of all of those things. I love sort of being able to play with the audience, and I know that you know you can do that in stand-up, but I like the veneer of a character as well. It gives you that sort of arm’s length distance from the real world where you can let loose a little bit more. I mean, Gumshoe can get away with a lot more than I can, for example. But it’s playful, it’s silly, it never feels real. You know the stakes aren’t.

I like when I play with the audience, the joke is always on on me, as it should be with comedy. Having that character there just gives me a little bit more freedom I think, and I also love storytelling. Storytelling is one of my favorite things in any sort of media. When I started writing this, I going, ‘I should put some more jokes in because at the moment I’m just really getting excited about telling this murder mystery and I need to make sure the comedy is there as well!’ But yes, storytelling is one of my favorite things. I just love it so much.

Were there any specific examples of the private eye, or the film noir genre more specifically, that informed the show or the character, and what are your favorite tropes of those films?

There’s lots of  jokes in there which a lot of people I don’t think will get, but there’s a lot of for me and for those that like the books of Raymond Chandler and the old Orson Welles films. There’s some sort of hidden stuff in there for them. A few people have come up to me and gone, ‘Was that a reference to the The Third Man? And I was like, ‘It is, yeah!’ You know, I didn’t want to be so on the nose with it because I know a lot of people, younger people for example, might not have seen that stuff, so I want to appeal to everyone. But there’s a few little hidden things in there.

So yeah, the work of Orson Welles, Raymond Chandler, all those old sort of 1940 films, like Double Indemnity. The Third Man is probably my favorite example, or The Maltese Falcon. Those sort of films definitely heavily influenced the character, but I mean, Knives Out was a huge inspiration for the for the show in general. That’s actually where the idea came from. I was watching that film about 3am and I was like, ‘You know what would be great is if there was a show about this detective. It’s a one-man show, and somehow I can have all these characters and this big mystery, and include the audience a lot, but also, you know, it never feel like it’s a one-man show!’ That was kind of what I was trying to make.

As you’ve said, there’s a lot of room for improvisation, but has the central narrative changed at all since you brought it here last year, or or has that remained pretty much constant?

I mean, every show is different. That’s the truth of it, because the way it starts is I get an audience member up, and they give me a case. Basically, they tell me a a crime that’s been committed. They tell me who the crime has been done to, and then they give me a name of somebody they suspect has done the crime. And those three things sort of get interweaved with the overall scripted narrative, or I do my best to do that. So every show is slightly different, but the the main overall arc has stayed the same from last year, because I just think I was very comfortable in it as soon as I started getting it on stage.

The main thing that changed was the ending. The ending is different than it was at Edinburgh last year, back when I was first sort of figuring it out. Because my favorite part of murder mysteries, which I think is probably most people’s favorite part, is the big reveal and sort of the twists and the turns at the end. So that has been sort of improved and made a little bit more… I don’t know, sort of explosive, let’s say. But overall, it’s stayed basically the same. But there’s a few extra little bits tapped in there.

What what are your hopes for the the show this year? What what constitute a successful Fringe for you?

It’s a very big question, I think, because everyone’s Fringe goals and dreams are different, aren’t they? I think the main one… and when people say to me, you know, new people who are going to the Fringe, they say, ‘What should I be trying to do?’ ‘What’s the goal of the Fringe?’ And I always say, ‘Lead with having a good time.’ That’s the main thing, because you know anything can happen at the Fringe. You can have a sellout run, or you can have two people come and see the show. The main thing is that you have a good time. Don’t lose sight of that, because otherwise everything else is relatively left up to chance, isn’t it? You can do your absolute best. You can throw all the money in the world at the wall, and people still may not come. So my main thing is having a good time.

Luckily for me, last year I had a great time, and the show did very well. That certainly helps me have a good time. But my goal this year, I think, is probably just for as many people see it as possible. I really want to share the show with as many people as possible. I got lots of lovely reviews and sold out a lot last year. So my main thing now is just hopefully more people come. Hopefully people who have seen it already come back and enjoy it for a second time. And you know, if I leave the Fringe with, I don’t know, a Netflix deal, that would be great! But you know, that’s aiming pretty high, I think.

And what are the what for you are the the best and the worst things about the Fringe?

Oh, the best thing about the Fringe is is is the people, 100%. I’ve made so many lifelong friends now through the Fringe, and the camaraderie amongst all of the artists… it’s a city full of dreamers for a month. I love it. I think that’s the best part. And the food. I won’t lie. You know, Mosque Kitchen! I will be there a lot.

I think the worst thing… my temptation is to say the reviewers, but I won’t because they’ve been very nice! I will say I think the worst thing I guess is the stress of it. There is stress there, you know. A lot of the times when when I first started going to the Fringe, I felt the weight of what felt like the world on my shoulders, and it’s the idea that you know what’s important, you know what we make important to ourselves is the most important thing in the world at that time. When in the grand scheme of things, we’re up there doing very silly shows about detectives solving a made-up case. So in the grand scheme of things, it’s not actually that important, but it feels like it’s the most important thing in the world. So the stress that we put on ourselves as artists and the anxiety that that can sort of induce is probably the worst part.

And also, you know, when people don’t turn up. Again, that happened a few times with my show before ‘GUMSHOE!’ I had some days where very few people turned up, and I still did the show. But it’s hard to not knock yourself and make you think, ‘What’s everyone else doing that I haven’t done?’ And something I had to to learn was not to judge my success off of other people’s success, because that’s a very easy thing to do and it’s something that no artist should do because their success doesn’t impede yours. But it can feel like, ‘They’re doing all the same things I’m doing, why is why is no one coming to my one?’ So don’t do that. Be kind to yourself, and just enjoy it. Just enjoy it as much as you can.

And besides ‘GUMSHOE!’, can we expect to see you performing elsewhere, like guest spots, compilation shows, etc?

Oh gosh, this is where I need to remember the names of the shows! I’m doing a show called Tartan Tabletop, which I’ve done before. They’re fantastic. They’re so much fun. They are like a sort of Scottish-based RPG, and they do an hour-long show with a special guest every episode, and they do a new sort of mini Dungeons & Dragons-esque show, and when I’ve been on it before, I played a goblin, which I think will be the case again, and I love that because I’m a massive nerd so I like Dungeons & Dragons. I’m looking forward to doing that one.

I’m hosting a cabaret every Friday and Saturday with my best mate Sam Walls, who’s also comedian, because we work together in the comedy trio The Bad Clowns, which is sort of where I started my Fringe endeavors. And we still do stuff, and we’ll probably be back next year actually. I’m sure there’s a few more I’m booked into that I should remember, but other than my cabaret, Bad Clowns, and Good Friends – I should plug it – and Tartan Table Top, I’m sure you’ll see me. If not on the street.

Are there any other shows performers at the Fringe that you would recommend that perhaps might not get as much attention as they should?

I should have come prepared for this because I try to, in every interview and chat I’m doing, mention different people. Han Whyte is doing a show [with] a character called Roger Prick, and the show is called ‘Sexopolis‘. Go and see that. Very, very funny. Will & Noah. I love Will  & Noah, very funny sketch show. Love those guys. Do go and see that.

If you like magic, Kane & Abel – they’re fantastic. They’re brothers, and they’re hilarious, and they do great magic. Go see them. Ava Beaux is also a fantastic magician, and one last one. Let’s say Alex Franklin. Go see Alex Franklin. Fantastic. One more actually, Max Fulham. This is too many names, but they’re all great! I’m excited to see as many as I can that don’t clash with my show, so I will be there!

‘GUMSHOE!’ is at Gilded Balloon Teviot – Dining Room from Wed 5 to Mon 31 Aug 2026